Tecumseh reboots effort to find tenants for tech campus

Tuesday

May 16, 2017 at 6:00 PM

Dmitriy Shapiro Daily Telegram Staff Writer @lenaweeshapiro

TECUMSEH — A new effort is underway to sell land in the Tecumseh Business and Technology Campus.

The 158 acres at 5695 E. Chicago Blvd. were purchased in 2004 for $2.15 million, for which the city took out a loan. The property was redeveloped through grants to include all the infrastructure a high-tech company or research facility would require. All a future tenant needed to do was build a building.

The recession began months later and while city officials and two different corporate real estate companies have tried to find occupants for the property, none have moved in.

The campus remains unoccupied, with the exception of some land leased to a farmer. On May 4, city officials signed an exclusive listing agreement with Patrick Hoffman, a Tecumseh-based commercial real estate broker with Hanna Commercial Real Estate. The deal gives Hoffman permission to act as the exclusive broker for the property on the city’s behalf, with all potential deals initiated while the contract is in effect required to go through him. The entire property will be listed at $3 million or may be divided into 11 separate lots priced $30,000 per acre. The city will be able to adjust the price as needed.

In return, Hoffman will receive a 10 percent commission, with a minimum per transaction fee of $7,500 on any sale, during the term of the agreement and six months after it expires.

The agreement runs for a year, after which the council may end or extend it.

City manager Dan Swallow said the deal had a number of advantages, including that Hoffman is based in the Howard Hanna office in downtown Tecumseh, that by working with other brokers Hanna knows what properties are in demand in the region and that the agency has better access to online listings and marketing tools.

Council member Ron Wimple said his only concern with the contract was its original two-year term, preferring a one-year pact. His amendment was approved by the council.

Hoffman, who last year brokered the successful sale of the former Tecumseh Products Co. site to the developer now constructing Revival Commons, was confident his 25 years of experience in commercial real estate and knowledge of the area would give the city an advantage. He thought a two-year contract was reasonable, pointing out that the Products site took 21⁄2 years to sell, but he said he’d still agree to the shorter term.

Hoffman did ask the city council if it would also consider a light industrial or big warehouse user. Plans for the city call for high-level research and design facilities, advanced technology firms and health care.

“My personal opinion is we would listen to consider anything you brought to us,” Mayor Jack Baker told Hoffman during the meeting. “I’m not going to say yes or no, or speak for the council. I would say that we would certainly consider."

Tecumseh economic development director Paula Holtz said the city previously had similar agreements with two other commercial real estate agents — one which had a presence in Ann Arbor and the other in Toledo area. Because of the economy, those efforts were unsuccessful and the city decided to take on marketing of the site on its own.

“We really tried to be out there,” she said. “At the time, the demand just wasn’t there. And then what happened after that is businesses could really buy buildings for pennies on the dollar. No one was interested in building when there were plenty of vacant buildings available that could be had at a very, very low price. It’s only now that we’re actually starting to get requests for greenfield sites, because the economy has rebounded enough where those vacant manufacturing buildings are now filled. Now companies are having to look at building new sites.”

Holtz said the city will continue working with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Lenawee Now, but no longer will have to pay the large membership subscriptions to the corporate property-listing organizations.

“The city recognizes they have an asset sitting there that’s been generating no revenue, no tax dollars, no jobs and they decided, ‘Let's hire a professional to expose it to the market. Somebody that’s in the business,’ ” Hoffman said. “(They’re) doing this to try to generate some revenue, some tax dollars so they make the taxpayers happy.”

Holtz also thinks Hoffman’s knowledge of Tecumseh would be an advantage over the previous out-of-town brokers.

“The nice thing about Hanna is that they have a local presence, but they also have a regional and larger presence,” Holtz said. “They have sort of that parent company that has a greater draw. But there’s still someone physically in the office in Tecumseh, who knows Tecumseh, eats and shops in Tecumseh. So that was really important to us, because in the past, we weren’t sure how much time other brokers spent here in town.”

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.